Even the most pertinacious were forced to concede that she
was both physically and mentally unique, with a charm all her own.
But just as she had become once more the subject of general
conversation, she disappeared. It afterwards transpired that her
husband had fetched her away, though hardly any one had seen him.
It was concluded that they must have had their first quarrel over
it.
Accurate information about their joint life was never obtained.
The attempts of her relations to force themselves upon them were
quite without result, except that they found out that she was
enceinte, notwithstanding her utmost efforts to conceal the fact.
She sent neither letter nor announcement; but in the summer, when
she was next seen in Christiania, she was wheeling a perambulator
along Karl Johan Street, her eyes as wondering as though some one
had just put it between her hands. She looked handsomer and more
blooming than ever.
In the perambulator lay a boy with his mother's broad forehead,
his mother's red hair. The child was charmingly dressed, and he,
as well as the perambulator, was so daintily equipped, so
completely in harmony with herself, that every one understood the
reply that she gave, when, after the usual congratulations, her
acquaintances inquired, "Shall we soon have a new story from
you?"--she answered, "A new story? Here it is!"
But, notwithstanding the unalloyed happiness which she displayed
here, it could no longer be concealed that more often than not she
was absent from home, and that she never mentioned her husband's
name.
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